April 2025 / Reading Time: 9 minutes
STUDY A: Clicks for cash: The multi-billion-dollar exploitation of children. A rapid review of the economy of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse (TF-CSEA)
Introduction
Technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse (TF-CSEA) causes harm to its victims physically, emotionally and mentally, as well as financially. Applying a framework that looks at commercial determinants of health (Friel et al., 2023), we examine the financial and social economy of TF-CSEA. We review how societal norms have evolved to a point where profit extraction from the online abuse of children in all forms is overlooked due to the financial gain for companies and offenders (Schulz, 2018).
Methodology
The following is a rapid review of both academic and grey literature pertaining to how offenders sexually abuse children through the medium of technology. This review looked at 20 publications across multiple disciplines, including big data reports, systematic reviews, discussion papers and qualitative studies. These reports largely focused on global subjects. However, some provided country specific data from the United Kingdom, United States, India and the Philippines.
The review found that the profitability is largely split into three economies, based on the type of abuse and the technology it employs. These economies have grown so large that they are now estimated to represent a multi-billion-dollar industry. There are also signs of the behaviour being normalised outside of its financial gain, with children starting to exhibit similar behaviours in the push to create and collect sexual content of their peers.
Research findings
The commodification of children involves the sale of child sexual abuse content (Acar, 2017; Malby et al., 2015), whether live or recorded, in addition to the threat of distribution of content by means of financial sexual extortion (C3P, 2022; ARU & IWF, 2024). In this way offenders have created concurrent economies, both of which victimise children and generate profit for the perpetrator from the abuse of the child. By utilising their networks on technology-facilitated spaces, offenders have created an economy for the sale and generation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) that exists on both the Dark Web, the hidden part of the internet, and the clear web, which anyone can easily access using mainstream search engines. At the same time, they have found a way to monetise the private sexual images of children who have been sexually exploited by having children pay for their content not to be shared. These all have the same outcome: profit for the offender and for the systems that they use.
Financial sexual extortion economy
One way in which offenders have created an economy for TF-CSEA is through financial sexual extortion, a victimisation scheme in which children and their families are the target of threats to share the sexual content of a child if they do not comply with monetary demands. One study found that, in some cases, there are recurring threats, even after the family has complied with the demands. To put this in context in terms of the magnitude and frequency of threats for payment that is being requested, the recently published Into the Light index found that 3.5% of children globally had experienced sexual extortion in the last year, with 4.7% of children experiencing this at some time during their childhood (Fry et al., 2025). The global organisations that receive reports of TF-CSEA have also seen significant numbers of victims experiencing this crime. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) received more than 2,600 reports of sexual extortion between September 2023 and April 2024 (C3P, 2024), the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) received 176 in 2023 (IWF, 2023), and the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received 26,718 reports also in 2023 (Vaughan, 2024). The numbers all point to the business of financial sexual extortion harming children across the world, regardless of their location.
Financial sexual extortion has created an economy out of the exploitation of children — and the financial gains not only accrue to the offender. By involving and misusing commercial enterprises, such as electronic service providers (social media, messaging apps and video call services) and online payment systems (money transfer services, cryptocurrency and online banking), these institutions become facilitators of the exploitation. Hence, these platforms play a role in the sexual exploitation and abuse that occurs on their services — services which have evolved to suit users — and by doing so they facilitate and enable the abuse to occur (Malby et al., 2015).
Of the more than 26,000 reports received by NCMEC concerning financial sexual extortion in 2023, the majority were directly reported by electronic service providers, which are mandated to report this type of crime on their platform; this may point to an awareness and acknowledgment of the part their platforms play. In one study (C3P, 2022), it was found that an overwhelming proportion of people experiencing financial sexual extortion were requested to pay their extorters through one particular online payment and money transfer service that does not require the sharing of bank details directly. Due to the fee structure of payments, this provided the company with a direct financial gain.
Social media platforms benefit financially as well, with increased content shared and generated on their platforms, increasing their use overall (Meggyesfalvi, 2024). According to Statista, spending by advertisers on social media platforms was approximately USD 116 billion in 2021, with projections from the World Advertising Research Centre that this will surpass USD 247 billion in 2024 (Statista, 2024; World Advertising Research Centre, 2024). As advertising is linked to the number of platform users, social media companies can make more money as more people use
their platforms, including for purposes linked to the sexual exploitation and abuse of children. As a result, there is a financial gain for these sectors and for the offenders, which could be seen as a disincentive to regulate such activities, as this could impact negatively on advertising revenue. There are disincentives for protective regulation, as full operating costs are borne by the platform providers (Malby et al., 2015).
Beyond these streams, this crime has spawned the creation of fee-based companies that provide cybersecurity and reputation management services to victims to combat the offending extorters. These fees are often paid upfront and can amount to thousands of dollars. This only further commodifies the sexual abuse content of children by forcing them to pay for a solution to the crime of exploitation committed against them (C3P, 2022).
CSAM sharing economy
Offenders not only profit off the threat of sharing and the facilitation of TF-CSEA, but there is also a market for the sale of child sexual abuse, both recorded and streamed. Livestreaming and CSAM by request are two methods in which child sexual abuse material turns children into a commodity. One review noted that CSAM, especially new and offender-specified CSAM, is seen as collectable. There is also an appetite for known child sexual abuse material or abuse material on specific children.
Offenders will use technology-facilitated networking platforms to share memes or advertisements, which alert others to the availability of child sexual abuse content in exchange for payment or, in some cases, even about a child who can be targeted for sexual abuse (NCMEC, 2017; Ramiro et al., 2019). This advertisement of the sexual abuse material helps to further the representation of children as a commodity available for purchase (Roos, 2014). One video file of on-demand child sexual abuse can cost USD 1,200 (Malby et al., 2015), with the whole CSAM sharing criminal economy estimated to reach multiple billions of dollars annually (Acar, 2017).
Worryingly, this culture of collection is also appearing in the sexual behaviour of children with one another (ARU & IWF, 2024). In a joint project conducted in the United Kingdom, female youth described feeling pressured to send nude images, while male youth felt pressure to collect and distribute the sexual images to achieve higher social value (Reeves, 2023). Children reported using technology-facilitated sharing of intimate content as a means to explore and understand sexuality, which may provide a skewed version of sexuality that promotes the commodification of sexual expression (ARU & IWF, 2024).
Livestreaming economy
The livestreaming of child sexual abuse, web-cam child exploitation and on-demand child sexual abuse material is an economy that provides remuneration to those it victimises as an incentive. In certain contexts, this becomes a means of financial independence or even livelihood. Children may be enticed to take photos of themselves to sell themselves or to connect in person with an offender to have their sexual abuse/exploitation recorded. Children have reported being paid USD 300 for 300 photos, in other circumstances they are provided with gift cards, material gifts or other items that they may not be able to purchase themselves (NCMEC, 2017). Girls are more likely to be offered these gifts and are subject to more sexualised discourse around their sexual exploitation (ARU & IWF, 2024).
In certain circumstances this is viewed as a line of work, which is passed down through generations (Ramiro et al., 2019). In some communities, children are simply being advised on how to self-produce sexual exploitation material to make money (Meggyesfalvi, 2024). Platforms like Omegle were misused as a place where children could be exploited and coerced into distributing their content for money (Meggyesfalvi, 2024). To demonstrate the magnitude of requests and pressure put on children, Terre Des Hommes developed a 3-D online model of a child, which garnered over 1,000 offers of financial compensation in exchange for performing sexual acts in 10 weeks (Acar, 2017).
Conclusion and recommendations
The way in which companies are profiting from the sexual abuse and exploitation of children needs to be addressed. This will take changes to laws and regulations, as well as creating a financial penalty for non-compliance. This has started to occur in many locations in the European Union, United Kingdom and Australia. However, as the internet and connections via technology are global, this requires a more unified and global response to ensure that all children are protected. Creating a standard fine system would help to address the current imbalance, in which there are no financial consequences for the role that companies play in facilitating and perpetuating the abuse.
In addition, the inclusion of TF-CSEA and its harm must be continued in internet safety discussions with young people, either through schools or awareness campaigns. The use of technology to explore sexuality is the norm, but that does not mean that the acceptance of collecting sexual images of peers or feeling pressured to send them is also a part of that norm.
The relationship between the benefit to the offender and the cost to the victim shows that when offenders profit it is at the expense of the child. This problem goes beyond the individual platforms and involves internet service providers (Salter & Solokov, 2024) as well as app stores where the social media and messaging platforms are first made available (Prakash et al. 2021). There needs to be greater regulation across all sectors involved, not just a focus on social media and messaging applications.
It is only through identifying all of the entities that play a role in the exploitation and abuse of children that we can hope to stop it from occurring through the use of technology. This requires specific legislative and regulatory powers to be provided to government and oversight bodies to mandate sectors such as app stores and internet service providers to use all the safety tools available. These tools, which should be standard, such as photo matching, age assurance and moderation/response teams, are already a part of many social media and messaging services.
As more online safety specific legislation is currently being enacted or drafted globally, it is an opportune moment to include such requirements. Sexual extortion, specifically, is a form of sexual exploitation that benefited from the Covid-19 pandemic,, with technology facilitating the abuse across distance (Europol, 2020).
In the end, however, it is the victims and their families who bear the cost of this system, no matter the perceived benefit, as both financial and non-financial costs are borne by the victims.
Limitations
The nature of this report as a rapid review means that certain studies may have been missed during the course of the research. The study period (2014 to 2024) also meant that influential research prior to 2014 was not considered. The study did not consider all forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse and, as such, may have missed research that shows how money is exchanged in relation to the in-person sexual abuse of children.
More information
Suggested citation: Stevenson, J., & Fry, D. (2025). A rapid review of the economy of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse. In: Searchlight 2025 – Childlight's Flagship Report. Edinburgh: Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute
Researchers: Mr James Stevenson, Professor Deborah Fry
Registered study protocol: OSF Registries| A Rapid Review of the Commercial Determinants of Technology-Facilitated Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (TF-CSEA)
Ethics approval: Not applicable
Advisory committee members: Dr Beverley Essue (Associate Professor of Global Health Systems, University of Toronto), Professor Nata Duvvury (Established Professor and Director Centre for Global Women’s Studies, University of Galway)
Funding acknowledgement: The research leading to these results has received funding from the Human Dignity Foundation under the core grant provided to Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute under the grant agreement number [INT21-01].